Then what "-ism" would you suggest to describe what the current situation is in the US?

Actually, yes. These loans can't even be dismissed via bankruptcy and many government benefits are tied to the repayment of them.

I, for one, would support that 100%. But, until they do, why should billionaires get a better government interest rate than the average person?

Yes, Mussolini preferred the term corporatism, over fascism, but corporatism, today, is the acceptable term because of fascism has ties to Hitler and Mussolini.

It doesn't matter if if Google or anybody else would have changed Tesla, that is not the point. As an investor in the company, they have every right to do so, up to the point of their percentage ownership. That's how corporations work, after all. The government had no need to bail out Tesla as there was private financing available, unless you want to argue, they wanted to further Musk's vision for Tesla. However, that brings us back to corporatism/fascism.

Finally, even if Tesla had a bunch of good, even innovative ideas, that doesn't make them an innovative company if they can't bring product to market. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that have good and innovative ideas, but unless you can deliver, they are simply dreams. Musk delivered, because the government made him a below market loan, that came from the taxpayers.

It sounds like you are arguing that government should fund billionaires companies because it might produce innovation. Historically, billionaires became billionaires because they took on the risk of promoting their vision, not the taxpayer, but maybe this is the New America, where government is needed to even run our companies.

It isn't really about a free market, but about capitalism as an economic system. According to capitalism, Tesla, should have gone to the banks or investors and if Musk's plan was good, he would have received the capital he needed to stave off bankruptcy. He actually did that and had a deal worked out. However, the government also intervened in the market and offered him a better deal. That is not capitalism, but corporatism (which is the politically correct modern name for fascism).

Either way, Musk and Tesla would have staved off bankruptcy, the difference is that with the government bailout/loan, Musk gets to keep control of Tesla, whereas the Google investment would have split control. It's not so much about a free market, but instead about the government intervening in the economy that seems to benefit only a select few. I'm not saying that the government should not have loaned the money to Musk. I am saying it should only have done so if there were no other option. Since there was another option, although less palatable to Musk, he should not have received a federal bailout.

Put differently, unlike the GM bailout, this bailout was to somebody in the 1% group to enable him to make luxury automobiles for others in the 1%. All paid for by the 99% who can't afford such a vehicle in the first place. It may be argued that GM was too big to allow to fail, but it is hard to argue that about Tesla, particularly when there was private financing available.

And yet, the federal government makes loans to grad students in the 6% to 7% range. A failing tech company with a billionaire owner gets low interest loans because of the potential for the future, but low and middle income grad students, who really are the future get high rate loans.

Did he come by those state secrets through legal means? Maybe, maybe not, that is what a trial could tell. Did he violate any laws from the countries involved with the possession of classified information? Many countries make it illegal to be in possession of classified materials one is not legally entitled to be in possession of. Again, that would take a court to decide. Finally, is he a willing accomplice to a crime in obtaining and disclosing this information? He may not have signed an oath or an NDA, but somebody might have done so. If so, he could, depending on the laws of said country, been an accomplice. Another thing for a court to decide.

The question shouldn't be about in what way is he obligated to keep or not to keep those secrets, but instead, whether or not he was involved, in any way, with espionage. Most "spies" don't do the actual theft of state secrets, either. The legal question to be answered is whether or not he is guilty of espionage and the answer either you, or me, or anybody else might give, doesn't really matter, it is a decision for the courts who hold jurisdiction to decide.

It seems that it is not in dispute that he willingly was in possession of and disclosed confidential information. You take the position that he has the moral, if not legal right to do so. Fine, if he took a moral stand and felt compelled to release the information as a matter of conscience, fine. But people take moral stands all the time and are willing to suffer the consequences. Why should he be different?

Well, since governments are responsible for upholding the law, until he has his day in court, it makes sense that governments would not be pro-Assange. The man is accused of releasing state secrets and threatening to release more. From a government perspective, he is involved in espionage. Why would you expect them to be supportive of him?

He is more than an alleged criminal. There is a warrant out for his arrest and he is seeking asylum in a foreign embassy. The judges are correct, his current status is that of being a fugitive. Since it is possible that Great Britain may one day extradite, it would be improper for them to share the stage (even if he is doing so remotely) with him. If nothing else, it would question whether they, the judges, could be impartial if his case came to trial.

Well, you can do what companies did in the old days before so many people had a degree and actually train your employees. Many of today's technology graduates are book smart but that's about it. I used to work for a large state agency

Historically, supply and demand determined wages. However, big business, with the help of government, doesn't want that, so they import excess workers saying they can't find qualified applicants. This holds down wages, which discourages people from seeking the skills that would make them qualified. Stopping H1B Visas would go a long way to increasing the market value of STEM jobs. However, that is unlikely to happen because higher wages means lower dividends.

The problem is not that US STEM students are falling behind. The problem is in who gets tested. In many, many countries, only those students who show an aptitude for a STEM field get educated for that field, while many others end up getting trade skills. So, the top 10% of the US scores tend to single out the cream of the crop, in general, while the top 10% of others is the cream of the crop of the cream of the crop.

It would be similar to only using people in the comparison in the US who scored 32 or above on the ACT when comparing with other countries. But in the US, anybody who can pay (or borrow) can go to college, so the testing is using different types of populations which skews the statistics.

To be meaningful, statistics need to have the same base for comparison. You would think they would teach that in a STEM curriculum.

That is my point, without net neutrality, what you describe can happen. In addition, most people don't have many options for internet providers, so it's not like they can shop around. I should have been more clear in my original post that net neutrality is a good thing because it ultimately protects the consumer.

That was my point. Without these rules, the things I posted could happen. Unfortunately, I wasn't clear on that, I guess, so I was modded down.

But users end up paying the subscription fee to those content providers, do they not? What is to stop an internet provider from throttle back bandwidth unless the content provider pays extra, which then gets past on to the consumer? What's to stop an internet provider from partnering with Amazon to provide videos and and Netflix and everyone else must pay a premium for their data to be streamed, thus causing their services to cost more? What's to stop Comcast from throttling content they don't control, causing it to be more expensive to the provider/consumer than their own content?

Data is just electrons flowing down a pipe. It doesn't "cost" any more if those electrons are emails, webpages, videos, or whatever.